Introduction
Over the course of the past decade, athletics have unfortunately followed in the same direction as the rest of American pop-culture. These days, the sports world is full of grandstanding political statements, faux-movements, and the type of virtue-signaling that alienates people, creates division, and greatly diminishes the magic that sport used to possess in this country.
The latest trend in sports today is to berate, slander, and disrespect those who serve our nation. Police take the brunt of the abuse, but athletes famous for the muscles south of their skulls have even stooped to turning their ire on our nation’s military. Without further ado, here are 13 athletes who have used their different degrees of celebrity status to attack those who serve the country.
Joakim Noah
The New York Knicks’ newly acquired star decided to stand up Cadets for dinner at West Point last September when the team made a training camp visit to the Military Academy in the offseason. The Knicks have been doing training camp at West Point since 2014 and Noah is the only player to pull this type of stunt in three seasons.
Noah claims he’s not anti-troop, just anti-war. When Florida Gators met with President George W. Bush back in 2007 after winning the NCAA National Championship, Noah “protested” the Iraq War by wearing his shirt untucked. I’m not against his stance outright, it just seems pretentious for the stand taken to be so petty, inconsequential, and juvenile in nature.
Anti-war people aren’t immoral, just naïve. The US isn’t perfect and the politicians sending kids to die on foreign soil are anything but good actors many times. However, war is sometimes the only option and refusing to fight is unacceptable in those cases. Making a political statement by punishing the kids preparing to serve this country was low rent. Check out the US Military Academy’s official statement:
“The U.S. Military Academy at West Point develops leaders of character for the defense of our nation. We are disappointed and feel Mr. Noah’s choice of West Point to make a statement is inappropriate because of the great sacrifice that has originated from this institution over our nation’s history.”
